Canadian Pacific outlines vision for future, weighs interest in DM&E west end

Canadian Pacific has outlined the railroad's go-forward plan for change with plans to improve service, increase efficiency, lower cost and grow the business.

"Momentum is building at Canadian Pacific and the organization is driving to a culture of intense focus on operations. Service will be what drives this organization, by providing a premium, reliable product offering through a lower cost operation," President and CEO E. Hunter Harrison said. "We have initiated a rapid change agenda and have made tremendous progress in my first 160 days and we are only getting started."

• New longer sidings program will improve asset utilization and increase train length and velocity. The plan will allow CP to move the same or increased volumes with fewer trains and is expected to save more than 14,500 crew starts;

• Relocate CP's current corporate headquarters in downtown Calgary to new office space at Ogden Yard by 2014;

• Review options for the Delaware & Hudson in the U.S. Northeast, while maintaining options for continued growth in the energy business.

CP is seeking expressions of interest on the 660-mile portion of the former Dakota, Minnesota & Eastern, west of Tracy, Minn., into South Dakota, Nebraska and Wyoming and is inviting expressions of interest from prospective partners.

The line includes approximately 660 miles of track, which encompasses CP's current operations between Tracy, Minn., and Rapid City, S.D., north of Rapid City to Colony, Wyo., south of Rapid City to Dakota Jct., NE and connecting branchlines. CP has operated the rail line in this area since it assumed operational control of the Dakota, Minnesota & Eastern railroad in 2008. A number of grain, ethanol, clay and merchandise customers are rail-served in the area.